After years of dating, Zoe has decided waiting for the right one is taking too long. Determined to become a mother, she commits to a plan, makes an appointment and decides to go it alone. That same day, Zoe meets Stan - a man with real possibilities. Trying to nurture a budding relationship and hide the early signs of pregnancy becomes a comedy of errors for Zoe and creates confusing signals for Stan. When Zoe nervously reveals the reason for her unpredictable behavior, Stan commits fully and says he's in. Never before has love seen a courtship where a wild night of sex involves three in a bed - Stan, Zoe and the ever-present massive pregnancy pillow. Or, where 'date night' consists of being the 'focal point' at a near-stranger's water birth which does for kiddie pools what "Jaws" did for swimming in the ocean. The real pregnancy test comes when both of them realize they really don't know each other outside of hormonal chaos and birth preparations. With the nine month clock ticking, both begin to experience cold feet. Anyone can fall in love, get married and have a baby but doing it backwards in hyper-drive could be proof positive that they were made for each other.
It's hard to pinpoint when the American romantic comedy went into therapy, though you have to assume it was not long after filmmakers started hitting the couch, or at least cruising the self-help bookshelves. Once upon a studio time, romantic comedies involved a man and a woman engaged in delicate (or crude) power negotiations. The shrew had to be tamed and the boy had to grow up so he could handle her, or some variation on that idea. That template is still in use, though the banter that accompanied those negotiations has given way to speeches about feelings. Freud might have hit Hollywood decades earlier, but Woody Allen and the generations of funnymen and women he inspired, have a lot to answer for. |